Iraq's arsenal: Iraq remains a top regional military power despite its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, but many of its assets are worn, ageing or obsolete. Following are highlights of Iraq's military capabilities, excluding possible weapons of mass destruction.
The United States and other nations accuse Baghdad of keeping chemical and biological arms and say it is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iraq says it has disarmed.
According to Mr Anthony Cordesman, analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, and London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Iraq has the following capabilities:
ARMED FORCES: Iraq's military has around 390,000 full-time active personnel with President Saddam Hussein as the supreme armed forces commander.
Mr Cordesman says Iraq has the most effective military in the region but IISS analyst Mr Phillip Mitchell reckons that neighbouring Iran, with about 520,000 personnel, has the edge.
REGULAR ARMY AND REPUBLICAN GUARDS: The army has about 350,000 personnel. Iraq has six divisions of the elite Republican Guards, comprising three armoured, one mechanised and two infantry divisions. There are four elite Special Republican Guards brigades as part of a force designed to protect President Saddam and the leadership. The regular army has 16 divisions, including 11 relatively low-grade infantry divisions.
The regular army also has five commando and two special forces brigades. Most units lack modern training and the regular army is heavily dependent on conscripts. There are substantial equipment shortages.
TANKS: Iraq has 2,200-2,600 main battle tanks, of which 1,800-2,000 are combat-capable. Iraq has no modern tanks by US standards but does possess 700 relatively capable Soviet-built T-72 tanks and large numbers of T-62 tanks. Iraq lost many of its best tanks in the Gulf War. Iraq also has 3,700 other armoured vehicles. It faces a logistical and maintenance nightmare in supporting numerous different types of vehicles, many old and obsolete, with different firepower, mobility and endurance.
ARTILLERY: Iraq's 2,400 major artillery weapons include 200-250 self-propelled artillery pieces, mostly in the hands of the Republican Guards and a few elite regular army units. Most of Iraq's artillery is the towed variety. Iraqi artillery has not shown the ability to deal with a quickly moving adversary. Iraq has extensive stocks of relatively modern anti-tank guided weapons, and big supplies of obsolete anti-tank guns.
AIR DEFENCE: Iraqi air defences have 17,000 men with more than 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and 3,000 anti-aircraft guns.
The heavy surface-to-air missile forces of the Air Defence Council are organised into one of the most dense defensive networks in the world. Major command facilities are underground and hardened, with a network of redundant radars and fibre-optic communications links. Sophisticated radars may have been smuggled from Ukraine.
AIR FORCE: The Iraqi air force has 316 combat aircraft, of which only about 50 to 60 per cent are serviceable. These include Mirage F-1s and MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-25s and MiG-29s. The air force has about 20,000 men.
MISSILES: Iraq has been destroying al-Samoud missiles because UN weapons inspectors said their range exceeds the 150-km limit set as a maximum since the Gulf War. Before the scrapping, Iraq had about 120 al-Samoud missiles. A British government report in September 2002 said Iraq has retained up to 20 Soviet-designed Scud missiles since the Gulf War. - (Reuters)